Contents
The encyclical starts by discussing the special place of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the plan of salvation and continues to focus on Mary's role in the Mystery of Christ in Part I of the encyclical.
Part II discusses Mary's role as the Mother of God at the center of the Pilgrim Church. This is built on later in Part III where Pope John Paul II confirmed the title, Mother of the Church, proclaimed by Pope Paul VI at the Second Vatican Council on November 21, 1964. This encyclical states:
- Mary embraces each and every one in the Church, and embraces each and every one through the Church. In this sense Mary, Mother of the Church, is also the Church's model.
Part III also deals with Maternal Mediation and the role of the Virgin Mary as a Mediatrix. The pontiff said:
- Thus there is a mediation: Mary places herself between her Son and mankind in the reality of their wants, needs and sufferings. She puts herself "in the middle," that is to say she acts as a mediatrix not as an outsider, but in her position as mother. She knows that as such she can point out to her Son the needs of mankind, and in fact, she "has the right" to do so. Her mediation is thus in the nature of intercession: Mary "intercedes" for mankind.
Read more about this topic: Redemptoris Mater
Famous quotes containing the word contents:
“The permanence of all books is fixed by no effort friendly or hostile, but by their own specific gravity, or the intrinsic importance of their contents to the constant mind of man.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“How often we must remember the art of the surgeon, which, in replacing the broken bone, contents itself with releasing the parts from false position; they fly into place by the action of the muscles. On this art of nature all our arts rely.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Such as boxed
Their feelings properly, complete to tags
A box for dark men and a box for Other
Would often find the contents had been scrambled.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)